What Pokémon X and Y Means for the Nintendo 3DS

Yesterday, Nintendo held a special Nintendo Direct presentation specifically to announce a brand new Pokémon game. Launching worldwide (minus a few countries) in October of 2013 is Pokémon X and Y exclusively for the Nintendo 3DS.

This news is a slam dunk for Nintendo.

Why hello there, massive surge of Nintendo 3DS owners!

So, what does this new announcement mean for the Nintendo 3DS? It practically guarantees its long-term success.

After a rocky start and a forced price drop, Nintendo enjoyed really solid sales for their newest handheld. The Nintendo 3DS is a good little system with a steadily growing software library. Despite the insistence of a core group of anti-fans, the Nintendo 3DS is not failing. The addition of Pokémon X and Y, though, is tremendously helpful.

As of the last big count in March of 2012, Pokémon stands as the second biggest selling video game series of all time (behind Mario) with 219.28 million copies sold. How does that stack up next to other massive franchises? Call of Duty stands at 100 million sold, and Grand Theft Auto has that beat at 125 million sold.

Pokémon is a massive success story. This franchise has been a system seller since its debut on the original Game Boy. Let’s take that fact and apply it to the Nintendo 3DS.

Pokémon X and Y will sell Nintendo 3DS units. If Nintendo is smart, they’ll bundle the game with an XL edition and slap each Pokémon on the handheld’s casing. How many people do you think would buy the system on this game’s release? 100,000? 200,000? Those numbers seem possible.

Heck, even a cursory glance at the comment section below the announcement article for Pokémon X and Y that ran on this site yields a few new buyers.

“I wasn’t even planning on buying a 3DS but now it’s a must have before october.” [sic]

“Man now I have to buy a 3ds to play this awesome looking game” [sic]

“They finally convinced me to buy a 3DS” [sic]

“now i have to buy a 3ds because i was kinda living fine on my dsi…” [sic]

Pokémon X and Y will be massive for Nintendo. It will sell an absurd amount of copies and will push the Nintendo 3DS into the hands of a huge slew of new owners.